Chevrolet Bolt & Bolt EUV

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cwerdna said:
Reminder about Federal tax credit on GM EVs/PHEVs falling to $1875 on 10/1/19. If you want to buy a Bolt, this might be a better time... unless GM further discounts Bolts to make up for the tax credit reduction.


Do they still sell a PHEV at this point? IOW are there any new Volts left for sale...?
 
^^^
ELR and CT6 PHEV for the US market died before the Volt. Neither of those ever sold in large numbers. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any still being produced GM PHEVs for the US market.

For Volt, a quick check at https://www.chevrolet.com/locate-inventory/previous-year raising the slider to 2000 miles reveals a surprisingly high (to me) 366 of them, allegedly.
 
Yes, it seems that we have a lot of them left in this region as well. It's frustrating: it would be a great replacement for the PIP, with tons more EV range, electric heater - if only it didn't have that squashed, cramped body...
 
GRA said:
Tom Moloughney at IEVS:
2020 Chevy Bolt EV First Drive: Building A Better Bolt
https://insideevs.com/reviews/376153/2020-chevy-bolt-ev-first-drive/


Although max. charge rate is still 55kW the taper has been moved later, so you can now get 100 instead of 90 miles of range in 30 minutes (assuming a powerful enough charger), and it's also supposed to charge faster when cold.

I'm anxious to see the actual taper curve on the 2020 Bolt. The only thing I have heard is "it holds its max rate to above 50% SoC". But my 2017 does the same thing. It holds max rate until about 55%. So if they just went to, say 54%, they would actually have no proof of a better taper.

As for the 100 miles / 30 minutes, that's also possible in my 2017 Bolt on a 150A+ station such as EA. With a 125A EVGo "50kW" charger, I can get about 90 miles / 30 minutes as advertised. Again, a non-improvement.

Where there is improvement is cold weather charging. You may not care about that in the Bay Area, but when I'm heading to Vermont for Thanksgiving next month, I will be sitting around waiting for my cold battery to charge at half the normal rate. They claim "150%" as fast, so instead of half the rate (27kW), a 2020 Bolt could charge at 3/4 rate (41kW). That's a non trivial improvement.
 
Okay, Bolt owners, question for you. I'm looking to rent a Bolt on Turo to take it on a test drive up across Yosemite and back to establish some baseline energy use, before the first snowfall closes Highway 120 across the park. Unfortunately, there aren't any in my part of the Bay Area, and public transit doesn't get me all that close to one, so I'd need to use my bike as well for the last/first leg of the pick up/drop-off.

Has anyone put a full size bike in the back with the seat down, and if so, how easy/hard is it? Do you have to remove one or both wheels, drop/remove the bike seat, slide the driver's seat forward to the max etc.? Here's my bike (actually just the 60 cm frame, I transferred my old components onto it): https://surlybikes.com/bikes/cross_check

Not that it matters, but mine's yellow, or as Surly calls it, "Stoned Ground Mustard". :D
 
My brother-in-law in OR has a Bolt (*) and puts his full size bike in the car all the time, as he rides extensively. He removes the front wheel and folds the rear seats. It looked pretty easy for him, and he has a shoulder problem preventing him from lifting above his head.

(When we visited this year and he took us for a ride on the Banks-Vernonia trail, we had his bike inside and 2 bikes on the roof of the Bolt; I had to do the lifting to get it on the roof since he couldn't anymore)

(*) The Bolt replaced his '11 LEAF
 
OK, thanks to both. I've looked at/driven a Bolt, but figured I'd have to remove the front wheel at a minimum, unlike my current car where I can put it inside intact. I've got a narrow window to do this, but it seems like there won't be any rain/snow for the next week or two, so the road will stay open.
 
jlv said:
My brother-in-law in OR has a Bolt (*) and puts his full size bike in the car all the time, as he rides extensively. He removes the front wheel and folds the rear seats. It looked pretty easy for him, and he has a shoulder problem preventing him from lifting above his head.

(When we visited this year and he took us for a ride on the Banks-Vernonia trail, we had his bike inside and 2 bikes on the roof of the Bolt; I had to do the lifting to get it on the roof since he couldn't anymore)

(*) The Bolt replaced his '11 LEAF

BTW, how tall's your brother-in-law? I'm 6' but long legs and I guess arms, so I have a largish frame with the seat and bars way up in the air.
 
GRA said:
BTW, how tall's your brother-in-law? I'm 6' but long legs and I guess arms, so I have a largish frame with the seat and bars way up in the air.
He's about 5'10 with a slim frame. My wife is pretty sure the bike in the car didn't have either wheel removed; either way, one whole bike fit in the Bolt.

(but we unfortunately had to take a second car because we couldn't fit 3 of us in the car with the bike)
 
Titanium48 said:
Worried that carrying the bike outside using a trailer hitch or strap on rack would mess up the aerodynamics?


If that was addressed to me and not jlv, that, plus it's more hassle than it's worth for a single bike. I've got roof racks, and when my friend and I take our bikes on a trip we use his 4Runner instead of my Forester, because he has a hitch rack and I don't, and the gas mileage is about the same as my Forester with bikes on the roof.

When I bought the Forester I considered getting a hitch rack, but the only hitches available for it were for 1.25" rather than 2" balls IIRR, and the Yakima sideways swing-away hitch mount I wanted needed the latter class (tongue weight issues). Given that and that I preferred not to be hauling the weight of the hitch around all the time whether I was using it or not, I went without. Truth to tell, I haven't used the roof racks in years, and I've taken the car rails off the roof as well (except when I need to carry a kayak). With the back seats down, one or two pairs of skis will fit diagonally inside with gear no problem, even my long (210 cm) X-C skis, and as I'm not a scoutmaster anymore I haven't needed to carry more than two pairs for a long time. A Bolt being 11" shorter can't do that, although it might be possible to carry them lengthwise between the front seats.
 
I reserved a Bolt on Turo, but I'm still waiting to hear back from the owner whether or not it has the QC, so I'll know whether to cancel the reservation. I'm not sure if the owners just don't know how important that info is or if most of the Bolts listed on Turo don't have it, but I've only seen two of them which state in the basic listing that they have QC, although a couple of them mention "every option" and then tell me about a bunch of comfort/convenience stuff which is irrelevant. Unfortunately, neither of the ones which I've seen list it are available when I need it.

Update: It didn't have QC so I cancelled it. There don't seem to be any listed with QC through the end of the month, and it's unlikely that the snow will hold off until then (Hwy 120 closes for the season with the first snowfall), so i'll just have to wait until spring. Who knows, maybe there'll be a Niro, Kona or 2020 Bolt on Turo by then.
 
ABG:
2019 Chevy Bolt EV earns IIHS Top Safety Pick with improved headlight performance
The EV hatchback from Chevy also gains 21 miles of range for 2020
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/11/13/chevy-bolt-ev-iihs-tsp/


Apparently they just needed to change the headlight aiming to have them upgraded from "Poor" to "Acceptable", and all Bolts produced after March 2018 have the new aiming. The Bolt also recently received an "Acceptable" rating on the IIHS small-offset crash test, and IIHS also rated the collision avoidance software highly, able to avoid collisions at 12 and 25 mph. I think that refers to AEB alone, but am not sure.
 
Rebel44 said:
GM still needs to add ACC, better seats and improve DC charge rate to make Bolt more competitive.


Those items certainly top most people's list of needed improvements, although I'd personally add not needing to pay for a bunch of other stuff to get AEB. I didn't personally have any issues with the Bolt LT's seats when I test drove it, but given my body type (tall and slim) I wasn't expecting them to be a problem. I can also live without ACC, but the charge rate definitely needs to be boosted, albeit to no more than 74 kW (with a later taper), or else to 100kW+ to avoid getting screwed by EA like the Korean makes do.
 
When my lease is up in 2021 I doubt I'll be keeping my car, because I'd have to buy it and I probably won't live long enough for that to be worthwhile - especially since she doesn't want to inherit it. (Maybe I can get a lease extension or two, or snap up one of the last 2020 40kwh Leafs.) My housemate, after some fairly intractable problems with her Prius PHEV idling very roughly, is beginning to concede that maybe a BEV-only lifestyle is for us after all. We just aren't using enough gas in her car for its health, ironically enough.The likely scenario is: I lease another nice car (likely a Leaf SV unless Nissan comes to its senses about leather interiors) and she buys a car for mainly around town, with some longer errands. Why am I rambling on about this, in this topic? Depending on the used market values in 2021, we may get a used Bolt LT as that second BEV. The main obstacle, oddly enough, is that it lacks a "Granny Mode" to tame the power for drivers who prefer Prius-like driving. She wouldn't be able to drive a BEV with less than 150 miles of range, even though she never exceeds maybe 75 miles in a day, and the Bolt appears to have the best combination of range and cost. The seats also make it more of an around town kind of car...
 
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